Love By Any Other Name
by Regency
Summary: AU. Four times John calls Sherlock 'love,' and one time Sherlock does the same. Fluff.


Author: Regency

Title: Love By Any Other Name

Pairing: Sherlock/John

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: ~2,600

Warnings: vague reference to violence and suicidal ideation. Very mild.

Summary: Four times John calls Sherlock 'love,' and one time Sherlock does the same.

Author's Notes: Written for BBC Sherlock Kink Meme prompt asking for John to call Sherlock 'love.'

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from Sherlock. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

* * *

**Four times John calls Sherlock "love"…**

* * *

It starts as an act.

…

Sherlock's sent John to be his eyes and ears on a murder case. The ex-army doctor's posing as a loving husband in search of the perfect anniversary gift. The boutique is nearly empty at the close of the lunch hour and, other than the staff, John is the only person there. He keeps his phone to his ear as they hadn't the time rustle up surveillance gear.

"How about this scarf, sir," asks a lovely strawberry blonde whom Sherlock had dismissed as uninvolved. John flashes her a bright smile and lays light fingers on the item. It's deep indigo blue cashmere and subtly embroidered. He can't deny it would suit his flatmate nicely.

"It is a beautiful colour, but I'm not sure."

"John," Sherlock snaps in his ear, "get to the fitting rooms and find our victim's clothing. We've no time to waste."

John grits his teeth, continuing to play his part. "I'm picking a gift for you, love, I don't think being careful about that is a waste."

Sherlock releases a long-suffering sight. "Just hurry."

John smiles again, this one a great deal less charming and more strained. "Ah, I just remembered, I need a new suit for tonight. You wouldn't happen to have a few lying about, would you?"

The woman waiting on him, and flirting with him, definitely flirting, beams. "In fact, we do, sir. How does Tyrwhitt strike you?"

John's answer swamps Sherlock's, thankfully. "Sounds perfect." Somehow, he doubts that having their merchandise called cheap and ill-constructed would endear him to them. "Lead the way."

Between he and himself, he'll probably be back for the scarf later. Sherlock's birthday isn't that far off, after all.

* * *

He does it again, because there are some moments when loneliness is a greater hell than the mind can conceive of.

…

John has become accustomed to his own set of night terrors. He's got remedies over remedies stock-piled. There's tea and crap late night telly. There's listening to his flatmate pace and whirl and torment or love the instrument that is as integral to his being as that remarkable mind. There's even brandy when the flat is quiet by necessity and all else fails. He survives the night as best he can. It never occurs to him to wonder how Sherlock does.

Some nights, Sherlock doesn't.

Tonight is one of those nights and with senses heightened by a remembered bullet John can hear him fuss. Sherlock can go for days without a word, but nights are his stage and the skull his untiring audience. John feels a bit of envy for it, always waiting ready and patient should Sherlock call. But then, he realizes that he's the same on the day shift, always faithful, always near. These words, though, aren't meant for external consumption; they're meant for the vast chaos in his head, for the genius alone. But John can hear them and the wrongness of it pulls him out of bed and down the stairs.

Sherlock has pulled his limbs in tight, curled to his abdomen in a bid for safety against god knows what, his dressing grown dripping toward the floor over his contorted feet. He is oddly small lying there and terrifyingly young for all his wisdom. John doesn't like to think of what might make a man like Sherlock afraid. John's lived the battlefield just as well.

He lays a hand across Sherlock's scapula and strokes the other through his hair. The younger man starts, eyes flashing like swivelling coins at the sight of him. He goes red, skipping shame for anger, but John won't let him keep it.

"Go to sleep." Sherlock goes to speak, only for John to hold a finger to his lips. It's still night and the morning is far off. He can give Sherlock what his friend has always given him: the dignity of silence. There's no sense in seeing it lost now. "Sleep, love. It's all fine."

Sherlock watches him for a lingering moment, questions rising and falling in his gaze, before slowly tucking his head back down into the cocoon of his arms. It takes minutes, some of them agonizing, but Sherlock finally retreats into sleep again, this one more readily peaceful. John tucks his worn dressing gown around his thin frame and slips away.

And if he lingers for a quarter-hour to assure Sherlock's demons don't stay, he's only returning a favour. They won't talk about it in the morning.

* * *

He does it a third time while he might be dying. Battlefield confessions often become the regrets of the recovered, but life is so short and Sherlock is right there and he can't not say the word when it matters.

…

Sherlock is terrified and it shows. His fingers cover John's as they press down on the knife wound in his side, and they are shaking just so. Sherlock had overestimated his own speed and underestimated their suspect. John can't breathe, but Sherlock is the one losing his breath.

"John, hold on." The words are so unnecessary as to be laughable and, for once, Sherlock misses it completely.

"I'm holding on, you daft git. Look, me, holding on. Call for an ambulance."

He pulls away to make the call. His fingers slip on the small buttons and for a moment he's clearly forgotten who to call. He gets it right in time and the call is made; help is coming. Sherlock's large hands find John's smaller ones and take over the bulk of exerting pressure. Maybe a bit too much, as John grimaces and shrinks away.

"Sorry, sorry. Just—let me." He flounders outwardly, but it's oh so much worse inside. He readjusts their positions until John is leant against his chest, the crown of his head snug to Sherlock's jaw. John's hands clutch his steadily, even as their strength wanes. "Just hold on, John. The ambulance should arrive shortly. If they can't follow simple directions, I'm certain Mycroft will have his own people come for us."

John nods. "Shh, I know." He's turning into a stunning weight, heavy and warm and terrifying, because he's forgetting to call Sherlock an idiot for stating the obvious, though that has always been Sherlock's métier and John's usually too kind.

"I should have anticipated this. We knew he was a violent offender who was unafraid of confrontation. He killed the last three people to confront him directly. I just didn't expect him to be armed." Sherlock will damn himself for it later, as he does now, as he will for longer than he can imagine if he loses John.

John hums, fingers blunt and sticky as they lace with his. "It's all right, love."

Sherlock buries his nose in not-dull, not-boring, not-in-the-least ordinary blonde hair and etches him as firmly in mind as he can. "But it isn't, John. Not if you're hurt. It's not all right if you're harmed in any way."

John chuckles and hurts; his fingers clutch and dig and Sherlock ignores the pain. "Some sociopath you are." Sherlock smirks, then, scowls. John already knows if his suppressed giggle is any sign. "Yeah, I love you, too." He lets out a tired puff of air, sagging almost completely in Sherlock's arms. "I really do."

Sherlock nudges his ear gently, comforting himself by the leap in John's beating heart against his chest. "I know."

* * *

He says it a fourth, a fifth, an umpteenth time, because this is his life now, this man is his life now. He doesn't have to wonder long if the feeling is mutual.

…

John wakes to lithe fingers in his hair. He murmurs into a bony chest, "Morning, love."

The fingers pause, and then tug his head back. He opens his eyes to find himself pinned by the same piercing gaze that's held him fascinated for months. Sherlock looks at him like this each morning, as though testing his sincerity with the passing day. He rewards whatever he finds with the firm pressing of lips across his face, glancing John's mouth in such a way that begs response.

Their kisses chase each other as their hands do, Sherlock's grabbing at the base of his neck and the small of his back, John's curving around one sturdy shoulder and in twisting in his hair. They've found a way, after all this time, of becoming utterly entangled. He likes that. He feels brilliant when Sherlock touches him, like he's become a grounding station for lightning. And if there's anything Sherlock needs, it's someone to keep him well grounded.

John is more than half-sure he's up to the task.

Sherlock flips him onto his back with than ease that would shock the truly dim, but only makes John's pulse rise. The way Sherlock looks at him makes him want to squirm out of reach of a thing sharper and deadlier than the wound that nearly took his life: this mind. Sherlock lays him open with a frank stare and holds him captive with the same. His gaze does not plead for honesty, rather it demands John offer up all he is, laying it at the altar of Sherlock's ultimate truth. The question why me? is always on the tip of his tongue, unspoken but not unheard.

John has so many reasons and none of the words to voice them. He and Sherlock are even at last.

Sherlock lowers his head until their lips nearly meet, their noses brush, and their eyelashes quarrel. "What do you want, John?"

For once, Sherlock takes the easy route. It makes all the difference.

"Just you."

Turns out, he and Sherlock have that in common, too.

* * *

**…and one time Sherlock does the same**

He does it because John is not other people. He isn't someone Sherlock merely tolerates, or only respects. He is the one to whom he entrusts his heart, the symbol and the organ. It's only logical, after all, to call one's love what they are.

…

Sherlock is not common. He is not pedestrian or traditional, or anything else one might association with other members of the human race. Common sense is, in his opinion, least common and least sensible. He hasn't any need of it in any case; he has a so much better thing. He has John.

John who doesn't understand what the skull means as a gift. John who spends a genius's eternity befuddled before arriving at the proper conclusion. His breath is unsteady, he licks his lips.

"I don't. I mean, you can't…" The sentence hangs unfinished and, for once, Sherlock isn't entirely certain how this ends.

"I can't what?" He knows he hasn't gone about this the usual way, but their partnership has never been in any way the norm. It seems unreasonable to expect boring now. "I'm fairly certain I can do whatever I like." The levied brow he receives in response is less shock than warning. "If you'd prefer I got down on one knee, I'm sure that can be arranged." He looks about the floor of Angelo's dubiously. "Perhaps back at the flat. I'd like to avoid the dry cleaning bill if I can."

"Why me?"

Sherlock sits back, frustrated by John's constant inability to observe. It's all so simple to his mind. "You can't be serious. Really, John,why? You're my blogger, my colleague. You're my dearest friend." Which isn't a minor declaration. Sherlock is far from the friendless rogue some would like to see him as, but he holds few in his confidence. John has been there for a very long time. The thought leaves him shifting in his seat. Were they at home, he dares think he'd be pacing. Movement makes the words flows more easily and he needs this to make sense. "My intention has always been for us to spend our remaining years together. It occurred to me, however, that I ought to ask if those were your intentions as well. After all, you are an attractive man. One as kind and considerate and fiercely loyal as you ought to have the chance to choose how you spend your life, and with whom."

"I see."

"You see?" Sherlock tries not to slump in his seat, tries not to grab his skull and curl around it for safekeeping. It isn't as though hearts are things concrete, and if they were it isn't as though the skull is a symbol of his. Not at all.

"I do. But you don't." John doesn't put down the skull and doesn't take Sherlock's hand. Neither of them are terribly tactile as a general rule and in public far less so. John cradles the skull with care, exhibiting the solemn respect he has always had for the dead. "I chose you the day we met. You were strange and amazing and unlike any person I'd ever known. You made me want to see another day when I had already decided that one would be my last."

Sherlock doesn't mean to lean forward but he is. His fingers curl around the stem of his glass lest they reach for John. His default, his touchstone, the steady fulcrum to his ever-cycling revolutions is right there, but he might not have been.

"I've chosen you every day since and I'll continue to."

"Until when?" Because everything has an expiration date; nothing in his life has lasted indefinitely, not even affection. But this, this he wants to last.

"Until you get bored."

He blinks. "Statistically unlikely. My relationship with you has far exceeded the average duration of past friendships and romantic entanglements. You are far less boring than anyone I've ever known."

"Not Moriarty."

Sherlock winces. The one person with the ability to shake John's faith in him isn't even alive any longer, yet 'Jim from IT' haunts him still. "An error in judgment undoubtedly."

"Quite." John looks ready to set down the skull. To do so would be more than a rejection of Sherlock's proposal but a denunciation of his feelings for John. Because love may have the potential to be a vicious motivator, but it is fascination which makes lovers stray.

It's this conclusion that moves Sherlock to bridge the open expanse of the table to grasp John's wrist. His palms are otherwise occupied with the skull and he'd dare not risk that, not with what it means now.

"You don't bore me, love. You couldn't. You frustrate me when you refuse to see the obvious. You confuse me when you rave over limbs in the kitchen sink or in the tub after being perfectly content to spend hours trawling through city block of skips. I hardly understand you at all now, and I expect you'll mystify me for decades yet." Gathering his courage carefully, he forges on, "But, John, I want that. I want decades of you not making any sense. Of you in those dreadful jumpers haranguing me about eating properly and the recommended amount of sleep I should be getting for my age. I want that. I want you."

John looks him over quite well for an ordinary man, poorly for someone who has spent so long at Sherlock's side. He worries that his friend—insufficient, dull, yet nothing else fits—will miss what Sherlock won't ever have the words to say. Finally, he purses his lips and nods. When he puts down the skull now, it means little as he takes up Sherlock's proffered hand right away.

"All right, then. How do you feel about dessert?" He doesn't have to say anything else.

It's one middling battle in a lifetime of them, yet Sherlock has never felt more like he's won a war.


End file.
